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Dippy the dinosaur goes on tour around the UK starting in Dorset

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A huge dinosaur skeleton will begin its tour of the UK today when it is unveiled in a museum on the Jurassic Coast.

The 26-metre centrepiece, known more commonly as ‘Dippy’, had been on display since 1905 in the Natural History Museum in London, most recently in the Hintze Hall in the museum’s entrance from 1979 to 2017.

It has not before been publicly displayed outside the museum.

The skeleton is a cast made in the early 1900s from an original in Pennsylvania, USA.

The Diplodocus carnegii speciesis is named after Andrew Carnegie, a 19th-century industrialist and philanthropist who donated the cast to the Natural History Museum. The species roamed the Earth between 145 and 156 million years ago.

In its displayed pose, the skeleton – nicknamed Dippy – is 26m long, 4.3m wide and 4.17m high. It took three weeks to dismantle the 292 bones, which are made of resin and plaster of Paris.

The three-year tour begins at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester, Dorset, on the Jurassic Coast, famed for its fossils. The exhibit will be open to the public from Saturday, with some events for press on Friday.